This article includes distressing material
Ethan Ungerboeck was portrayed as a gifted Scots College student from a prosperous Sydney family. Yet behind that privileged image, the 21-year-old allegedly participated in some of the most disturbing online criminal activity encountered by seasoned crime reporters.
The allegations involve child abuse material and videos showing the torture and killing of animals, placing his hidden online life among the most confronting cases to emerge from Australia’s dark web investigations.
As he sat in court and moved through a negotiated plea arrangement, his demeanour appeared to contrast sharply with the seriousness of the allegations. The proceedings left questions about the full extent of what he had done.
Court records have revealed cases involving extreme sexual offending and violence before, but the breadth of the material linked to Ungerboeck stands apart for its scale and severity.
The evidence also points to an apparent fixation on the humiliation, fear and suffering of vulnerable victims, including babies and young children, as well as animals.
Ungerboeck is due to be sentenced next month. Even under the reduced charges in his plea agreement, he could face up to 15 years in prison. Until then, concerns remain about the risk he may pose, particularly to neighbours who keep pets.
The case is set out in a detailed NSW Police statement of agreed facts. Its account of online abuse, cruelty and exploitation is deeply disturbing and documents conduct that has shocked those who have examined it.
Once presented as a high-achieving Scots College student with exceptional intelligence, 21-year-old Ethan Ungerboeck is accused of committing deeply disturbing offences in online chatrooms
Ungerboeck faces allegations involving child abuse material and animal cruelty videos depicting torture and death, offences prosecutors say are exceptionally serious
Ungerboeck attended one court hearing using crutches
The university student and former bartender lived with his wealthy parents in their five-bedroom, four-bathroom Maroubra property, valued at about $6 million. Police allege the home was the base for his offending.
According to the case material, he used his technical knowledge to access hidden online networks. His defence has highlighted his intelligence, while prosecutors have focused on the conduct alleged to have taken place behind the walls of the family home.
Investigators discovered a Telegram account operating under the username ArchivistofArchives, along with an HP laptop and a Deepcool computer tower that Ungerboeck had owned since his school years in 2016.
A USB drive seized by police contained a large collection of abusive and violent files. The material was uncovered by Australian Federal Police cybercrime investigators during their examination of his devices.
The investigation took place in 2024, when authorities were examining “The Com”, an online network linked to cybercrime, child sexual abuse material, right-wing extremism, terrorism, sextortion and other forms of coercive abuse.
Investigators identified communities including “Harm Nation”, where young girls were reportedly pressured into self-harm before images and videos were shared, and the Gore Group, which focused on animal torture, killing and sexual abuse.
The groups relied on Telegram, an encrypted messaging platform, to circulate written messages, videos, audio and other files. Innocent-sounding filenames were often used to conceal the nature of the material being exchanged.
It was through that investigation that police identified Ethan Ungerboeck.
The NSW Police statement of agreed facts concerning Ethan Tyler Ungerboeck, pictured with lawyer Michael Bowe, details allegations involving extreme cruelty, exploitation and online abuse
One of Ungerboeck’s excuses to get him off any penalties for violence is his poor mental health and cannabis use
Unusually, Ungerboeck’s statement of facts, tendered to Downing Centre Court, begins with a caution: ‘Warning sensitive and distressing content. This document contains text-based child abuse material, bestiality material and animal crush material.’
It further states that the matters described may only be ‘transmitted or accessed for the purposes provided by law’, meaning that relating the child abuse offences in full detail would risk re-offending Ethan’s crimes.
You won’t really want to hear it all, believe me, but we’ll give some hints as to its ghastly breadth.
The child abuse material that Ungerboeck was charged over consists of images and videos of mostly naked female children ranging in age from a one-year-old up to 17.
Things are done to children by adults with objects. Dogs are forced into sexual acts with men and women. In one video, a male engages sexually with a snake.
The so-called ‘animal crush’ material at the centre of Ethan’s offences depicts the vivid, brutal slaying of puppies and kittens.
On an Emtec USB drive, Ungerboeck saved 4,034 image files and 101 videos – all of which were downloaded or created when Ethan was a child and ‘predominantly’ not accessed since he was 16.
On his Telegram account, Ungerboeck saved 16 videos containing child abuse material, and exchanged messages about a video which depicts kittens being tortured and killed
Ungerboeck’s file name for several images is ‘loli’, involving children aged between four and ten.
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On his Telegram account, Ungerboeck saved 16 videos containing child abuse material and exchanged messages with a user called ‘oy mondo’ to receive videos of animal crush material.
The facts cite an 18-minute, five-second video titled ‘Dead cats on Sesame Street Volume 2 – f***ed up media productions’, a compilation of kittens being tortured and killed.
The methods included animals being hanged, beaten, drowned, crushed, nailed, burned and placed in a blender.
Other videos received by Ungerboeck show the torture and killing of monkeys. His Telegram group chats with others feature their appalling descriptions of violence to animals, including a hamster, a goat and a quail.
If he avoids jail, Ethan could remain in the family’s luxury home – either the Maroubra mansion (above) or his new ‘architecturally designed dress circle’ address listed in court documents
According to the documents, Ungerboeck recorded himself singing along to ‘existing rap song lyrics which he changed in a way that constituted child abuse material’ about a ‘baby’.
In a conversation with another Telegram user, who had his account deleted for making a coded reference for child pornography, Ungerboeck again mentions sexual acts with children.
He sends user oy mondo a two-hour, 50-minute suicide video of a Russian man shooting himself with an assault rifle.
Police arrested Ethan Ungerboeck in December 2024 and charged him with 17 offences, 12 relating to child abuse material, two to bestiality and three to animal crush material.
When arrested, Ungerboeck quickly turned on his associates, revealing the groups’ secrets and how to find them, boasting to detectives that his entry was ‘invite only, you know, similar to drug dealers. You have to know them.’
Ungerboeck’s vile material was found on his Deepcool computer and HP laptop, a USB drive
The Scots College graduate complained he had been bullied at the elite school. Police found he had started accessing child abuse material from a young age
Last week, when Ungerboeck’s high-profile solicitor Michael Bowe sought his client’s tenth delay in court, Judge Susan Horan responded with open disbelief.
When Mr Bowe insisted the defence hadn’t ‘been sitting on our hands,’ she replied: ‘Ten committal hearings is ten too many.’
Following a discussion with prosecutors, Mr Bowe secured a reduction of his client’s charges – ten were withdrawn – in exchange for guilty pleas.
Ungerboeck pleaded guilty to possessing or controlling child abuse material accessed via a carriage service, producing child abuse material with intent to transmit using a carriage service, and using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material.
He also pleaded guilty to possessing child abuse material on a USB, and to using a carriage service to cause offence by providing audio-visual material depicting another person fatally shooting themselves in the head.
The guilty pleas included two counts of possessing bestiality material and three counts of possessing animal crush material.
Ungerboeck, who had dated a 16-year-old girl when aged 20, had bitten her so hard that half her face went numb, and burnt her with a cigarette
Ethan Ungerboeck (pictured as a child with his sister) used to go into his parents’ advertising firm in his Scots College uniform
A further two charges, relating to transmitting offensive material and using child abuse material, which did not result in a conviction, will be considered at Ungerboeck’s sentencing next month.
Among the child abuse material cited in Ungerboeck’s offences was ‘an image of a female child aged 15 to 16 years wearing a white top pulled down to expose her breasts.
‘On the young female’s chest is a recent cutting which reads UBAY X ETHAN. The wound still has blood dripping down her chest on her white top,’ the documents said.
Ungerboeck, who had dated a 16-year-old girl when aged 20, had bitten her so hard that half her face went numb, and burnt her with a cigarette.
Ungerboeck eventually pleaded guilty to four domestic violence charges in relation to his treatment of the 16-year-old, but wasn’t convicted because his lawyer successfully argued that he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression.
He told the girl he had a number of girls around the world with his name carved into their bodies.
Although police were investigating him as part of a broader probe into online groups trading images of children engaged in sexual acts and self-harm, Ungerboeck was charged over the ‘cutting’ image with an offence of possessing child abuse material and pleaded guilty.
At sentencing, Ungerboeck’s lawyer is expected to cite his client’s mental health in an attempt to keep him out of prison.
If successful, Ungerboeck could remain in the family’s luxury home – whether the Maroubra residence or his new ‘architecturally designed dress circle’ address, complete with European appliances and marble benchtops – as listed in his latest court documents.
His fate will be decided at sentencing next month.